Before It Can End
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Pre-ViVid. She doesn't know if she wants to live or die, but she wants to do something. Sieglinde-centric
1. 1

A/N: Hello! Here is me, who really likes Sieg's character but as of the manga I have read we know more about her ancestor than her. So, why not look into it? About ten to twelve drabbles long.

Challenges: Diversity Writing Challenge (Anime) D6. Write a drabble novel

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1.

Her conscious memories aren't hers for a very long time.

The first memory she could call her own was the one where she broke her own rattle by accident. She hadn't meant to throw it, but the second it fell in her hand it was like returning a knife to its holder. The rattle had not felt like plastic then, but smooth wood and sticky steel. She hadn't liked the sticky feeling, so she had thrown it.

Her parents had been so proud.

She, after rubbing her sore fingers against the plastic of her high chair, had cried for more cereal.

There were no words to this memory, only gestures and smiles and pain.

Only feelings.

Memories always started with feelings.


	2. 2

2.

When she was five, she broke a classmate's nose in one punch.

Again, she is her but not her, herself with different muscles, and the opponent is meant to be crushed. There is a charge to protect at her back, and the boy is stupid enough to throw a clumsy fist around. That's enough to awaken her.

 _Every life in my vision is reaped._

When the memories sleep again, the boy has hit the ground with a streaming nose and raucous sobs. Her charge has run away, innocence tainted by violence.

Her fist is bloody. She cries.

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 ** _A/N:_** Short but poignant, I hope. I love Sieg's character. Maybe I'll ship Ein and Sieg in a fic sometime!


	3. 3

_**A?N:**_ Thanks DetectiveFox! Hopefully after this next one, things will pick up.

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3.

The magic doesn't make it better. It makes it so much worse.

The more she moves, the easier the breaking becomes. It's scary. What is she doing? What is she?

Her parents are frightened, so frightened. They were so happy before. She had been doing them so proud. Now they shy away a little, like she'll think they're a threat, like she can hurt them.

It's too late to wonder about that.

Maybe they don't remember about the table leg, but she does.


	4. 4

**_A/N:_** Thanks Detective! This story won't have the longest updates. I only have 3k to play with, so I'm going to milk it as much as possible. They'll slowly get a little longer as time goes on though!

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4.

Sieg has a whole wing to herself now. She keeps to it. She can't hurt books. Except in her dreams. Then she cuts into walls and rips windows like paper and hates herself, hates, hates, hates-

There are always meals from whisper-quiet servants. They smell like fear. She has to hold herself down so she doesn't snap their necks. Sieg is tempted to tell them to be loud. Threats are from quiet people, not them.

But she doesn't. She dips her head whenever the food goes down and sleeps on the floor in a sleeping back.

She is too tired most of the time after a while, so the bookshelves go untouched, living on their last legs. She spends so much time sleeping, she thinks her first friend is a dream.

But she's not. At the age of ten years, Victoria Dahlgrun walks into her world with big solemn eyes and a fierce frown that doesn't balk at the destruction. She flinches, but that seems to be par for the course.

What isn't is when she steps forward and takes her hand. "Hello. You don't scare me."

Five words are all it takes to shake her heart.


	5. 5

_**A/N:** _ I'm sorry but Victoria is fun. Enjoy!

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5.

Victoria is like no one Sieglinde has ever met.

For one, she calls her Sieg, in this royal, prissy sort of way that says to not bother arguing. For another, her hair glows blue when she is angry, which is quite a lot! Her butler seems more amused than exasperated each and every time and seems to not fear snapping a glove on her nose.

No matter what happens, they keep coming back and Sieg has to wonder if Victoria just has a death wish or something.

She doesn't fear a thing, not even when she's managed to grab Sieg's hood and drag her (and people don't do that, they're too scared) and pulls her out of the house to the sun she doesn't like and into a clearing.

It doesn't make sense until Victoria says. "Fight me."

Immediately Sieglinde panic freezes her and she goes flying hard into a tree. The stick in Victoria's hand sparks with lightning. She repeats the words. "Fight me."

"I'll hurt you." The words slip out before she can stop them. They sound whiny; she can't help it. It's the truth.

Victoria shrugs. "That's what happens when you fight. Come on."

Her butler sighs. "My lady, you are letting your temper get the better of you." He's right. They can both see her hair slowly sparkling blue.

She glares. "She needs to fight. She won't fight if I don't have a little lapse in judgment."

She flings the stick. Sieglinde watches the projectile arc and her fist swings, shattering it with ease. Her feet move, lunging for the person who is no longer Victoria, but a faceless enemy, easy to break. She's struck with a leg, then another stick.

Something tells her to stop. She brings up her knee anyway. Another block and then-

She's thrown backwards. She's losing, she's actually _losing_.

Sieg finds she doesn't like it, and that overpowers the tiny refusal to stop fighting.

Victoria grins. "Much better."

Sieg punches the grin off of her face.


	6. 6

_**A/N:** _ Currently trying to marathon and finish this so I can have it done by the end of the summer, at least writing wise. Please enjoy!

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6.

She comes home bruised every day after. No one checks in on her, no one but an old servant (different from before). Apparently she takes no qualms with making her food and cleaning around the mess. She also has no problems booting her to the side with the broom. Is she new? Probably. Sieg can't care about that.

She punches and kicks the air, absorbed in the movements long after the fight is over. She's flipping and clinging to walls and the magic is almost flowing at times. It's just out of reach and it feels good.

Then the servant sweeps her legs out from under her and says, "Sloppy."

It stings, her eyes water, but she's not allowed to hit a servant. She's not allowed and always avoids it. Damage is done anyway.

"What?" she says instead, trying to pretend the insult and the injury don't hurt.

"Sloppy," the woman repeats. "You are young, you should be more nimble." She begins to sweep again. "Your friend cannot teach you what she lacks. She can teach you to want more, but to learn is something you need to do."

"Who are you?" She pauses, raises her fists. Just in case.

"One who has trained Aces," the maid says simply. "Now, I'm training you."

Did that mean what she thought it did?


	7. 7

_**A/N:**_ Hey guys, unfortunately, Einhart doesn't show up until towards the end but I can always write them together in another fic, right?

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7.

She spends weeks, months even, learning how to kill without killing.

Her magic is forced out in blasts, in waves, in recovery spells. She learns to use binds and break them. All of it is sloppy and exhausting.

When she's done, she's allowed to sit at the dinner table. She's too tired to call magic and even if she could, she is better at holding it down. It has to be that.

If that wasn't the case, she wouldn't be here at the Bureau day after day.

Not that she wants to be. She'd rather be anywhere else than standing in front of this big, scary building to get fitted for a Device she doesn't want.

But Fern, formerly her maid, is already here. Her eyes are stern and gentle at the same time and she doesn't tap her foot in that crisp military uniform that doesn't fit right to the young girl's eyes. Regardless, Sieg shuffles forward.

"Relax," Fern says. "The Aces were rougher than this at your age and they had Devices. If they manage to avoid permanent damage to these buildings, you have nothing to worry about."

The Aces of Earth. Everyone knew them, or knew of them. They were an example for every potential young mage, heroes before she had gotten out of diapers, before they even graduated elementary school. In other words, _not normal_.

Like her.

Somehow, the thought is comforting.

The people who greet her are quick and leave her a questionnaire. Then she's whisked off to a training field and told to fight.

It's not as terrifying as it was the first time, but it's just as exhilarating. Her heart is thumping as she raises her fists. Fern's eyes are on her back. They are a challenge.

Well. She's going to accept that.


	8. 8

8.

"The… Inter-Middle?"

"Yes." Her friend, and they are friends now apparently after two years, lifts the weights over her head. Then she drops them again. "I competed last year, I didn't get very far."

"She's a newcomer," her butler says with a small smile. "Getting into super novice was quite good."

"Not enough for me," Viktor declares. "The top is the top."

"What's so important about it?" Sieg drops from the tree branch she is hanging on. She's hesitant to ask. Honestly, she'd feel better asking Fern-sensei. But she has a life and a job. She can't ask.

"it's a giant test of skill, a chance to see the world in a controlled setting," Edgar says, pouring her a fresh cup of tea. "Many of the applicants take high ranking places in the TSAB or have many opportunities on careers."

Careers? Sieg could barely consider school.

"Not to mention, it's a lot of good experience," Viktor adds. She holds her spear, clearly resisting the urge to drive it into the dirt. "It's too bad the applications are already closed. You're just old enough to compete."

Sieg smiles a little. "I'm too dangerous. They wouldn't let me in."

"You'd be surprised," Edgar says with a wink. "They let the princess in, don't they?"

"Edgar!"

Sieglinde giggles before she can stop herself.

Well, at least she can go watch.


	9. 9

9.

And watch she does.

With or without a match, the game is intense. Sometimes she sees moves that strike a chord in her soul, things her body knows, that it can just counter with a thought or a well timed _speerfaust_.

She knows and it's frustrating, so frustrating.

Soon. Soon, she'll be able to fight there.

Not now, not immediately. She trains and trains for it, for Fern, for Viktor, and for herself. She will, someday, be strong enough.

Her Device glitters in the sun, silent and strong.

The battles are all a blur. Each one is just an experience until the end. She meets a girl with Earth glyphs on her back, a disciplinarian who masters binds. She faces Viktor and more, so many, many more. And somehow she's on a champion stage after years of fighting and people are cheering for her.

Sieg has no idea how she got to this place.

The letters fill her mailbox and there are fans and admirers and money, so much she doesn't want or need.

And then she comes home after all of this, covered in so many materials that don't mean anything and finds her home and burned to the ground.

She's moved to the city but it's not home. The country is home, the ruined world is home.

All of this clean is not.


	10. 10

10.

After, so much time after, she meets Einhart. Different colors, bright hair, steady fists. No smile. Never smiles.

They are alike. They have had the same look in their eyes. Tired, so tired. Einhart is still so tired, but she doesn't seem to know it. Did Viktor see this in her?

Her moves are so fast and painful. A part of her brain knows them dimly, in the battle instincts her ancestors have honed through her for centuries. She can counter them with ease. She does. The resulting sounds hurt her ears.

Well, it is a match, after all. They're in the middle of a match and they need to fight. Einhart needs to fight so badly, so much. It's painful for her to watch. She has to end it somehow. Has to put her to rest, before the end.

Before the girl breaks herself like she almost did.


	11. 11

_Spoilers for recently translated vivid arc!_

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11.

Sieg wonders if Einhart notices her own kindness. She doubts it, because her kindness is shoveling the whole burden onto her back and that is more exhausting than being nice. Being nice is just world wearying on a good day.

Har-nyan isn't as strong as Victor or the Boss, but she probably feels she should be by now. And it isn't happening so, well, it's probably frustrating.

Loss is frustrating. She's caused a lot of it. Har-nyan's experienced a lot of it, she's sure. The main part is opening her up to it, to realizing that loss is not all there is or all there will be.

Or cracking her head until it sticks. Friends do that.

And she likes Vivi-han, who is just sweet, just like the memories Har-nyan tells in stories.

She wonders if Har-nyan is in love.

She wonders if her own ancestor was in love. It's possible. Maybe she loved Har-nyan's ancestor once, or Vivi-han's.

But war doesn't have time for that, apparently. Not for those who mattered.


	12. 12

And here's the end! I hope people liked this... whatever it was.

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12.

There's another fight soon, she knows. Another tournament. One to make up for the disappearance. A chance to defend her title. There are so many battles left. She wants to fight them.

She's training in the wilderness again for the next match, and the next, as far as she can go.

She has so many friends, so many people living in the city that she doesn't understand. But she can navigate it, and maybe, in a few more fights, she'll know where's she's going, and why.

Punch, kick, erase. Fire in melee, grapple with someone who isn't there.

Fight, reap, live.

The war is over, but the battles always come back.

And she has to walk her path before it is gone.

"Champion," called a soft voice.

And of course, she can help Vivi-han make Har-nyan smile. That's always fun.


End file.
